This regime has been conducting a veritable exhibition of many of the sins most deeply condemned not only by the Bible but also by the wisdom of the classical world.

**They have refused to bow before the law.

**They have killed and stolen.

**They have been filled with hubris, and have over-reached.

**They have dishonored the truth.

**They have been indifferent to the plight of the poor, and have served instead the rich and mighty.

**They have not loved their enemies, let alone their neighbors.

**They have not walked humbly, but have swaggered and strutted.

**They have not feared the Lord, nor bowed to any authority higher than themselves, including the Constitution.

And tens of millions of Americans have all the while exalted these leaders.

**These Americans have followed false prophets, not seeing or not caring that they are wolves in sheeps’ clothing.

**They have made an idol of the flag.

**They have applauded as their leaders acted toward other nations in a spirit the very opposite of the Golden Rule.

**They have been complicit in the dishonest and irresponsible disregard of the damaging of the Creation.

This evil, sinful regime was not imposed on America from the outside, by a conquering power. It was chosen by half the people. And if this Bushite band of criminals not only abused power but stole it as well, the nation did not rouse itself to expose that theft and to restore justice.

In all these ways, this nation has sinned most grievously. And for these sins, we can already see America is paying a most grievous price.

It is a price measured in treasure, perhaps a few trillion dollars worth. It’s a price measured in blood, a few thousand American lives (not including the lives lost in other countries). And it’s a price paid in less tangible ways– a price weighed out in the loss of national influence, a price in harm to our institutions and our political culture, a price in the degradation of America’s soul.

This damage will not be easily repaired.

Note, too, Pat –perhaps before you again pronounce sentence, in the name of the Lord, against someone you don’t approve– how it is that the moral order of the world works to punish the sins of a nation. The realm of earthquakes and hurricanes apparently lies outside the realm where the wages of sin are paid.

We are embedded in a moral order of sorts. But rather than relying on some kind of supernatural intervention, this order seems an intrinsic part of the nature of things. In child-rearing circles, this way of discipline is called “natural consequences.”

I’ve long thought that people like you, Pat, ought to have more appreciation of the Creation. You seem to think that the Creation can’t do anything to keep order without outside intervention. But America today, like many other a nation that has sinned in the past, is being punished by the way the world itself works– that those who do not know or respect their proper place in the order of things get undone by the disorder they’ve created.

It’s true at the individual level. And, as we in America are beginning painfully to learn, it works with nations as well.

**Pride does come before a fall.

**Cruelty begets enmity.

**Deceit breeds disbelief.

**Hubris is punished.

**Anger begets anger.

**Rending the fabric of human connection leads to social disintegration.

**Tearing down the structures of justice draws down the social capital of trust.

Evil is too twisted to align with the ways of life. And so, like the hand of the potter on the spinning clay, the order of life sweeps away what’s out of kilter with its circle.

This is how nations that choose the path of evil get punished.
 

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